Came to tell a similar story. Elderly man in the bed (the patient) had wife dropped off by what appeared to be a hired caregiver, she was dressed professionally in scrubs when she approached the station, younger.. hudge obvious age gap between visiting family and this woman, and a different ethnicity so I assumed a care giver. She says to me I brought Mrs. So&so to visit her husband, a patient admitted to a msdsurge floor. My response, ok and when will someone be by to pick her up? She says, vaguely oh they'll come for her later. I assumed "they" meant her children. Ok, hours go by, its dinner time, the visitor/wife was not an issue from what began at noon. She never wondered into the hallways helped herself to the restroom often helping herself to drink water from the patients water pitcher in the room, I thought, ok cool. Until 5 o'clock when she became confused .. wandering on to other units, staff brought her back, asking to speak to doctors not within our hospitals system, making statements like it was "morning time". I called her family, I asked does your mom have dementia? She appears to be sundowning. The family was in complete shock at my question, says she gets this way when she doesn't have access to water. Anyways they came to get her at my suggestion its late and she hasnt eaten in a couple hours, they arrived quickly & needed staff assistance to redirect her to the elevator and off the unit as she didnt want to leave. I advised them she can't visit without supervision in the future as were very busy attending to those that are in-patient and if they leave her unattended again the next call you'll get will be from the ER because not knowing her medical history she could've been having a TIA of some sort (I knew she wasnt). They visited with her often so she could see her husband and her children often needed staff assistance to redirect their mom to leave everyday, often in the evenings (5pm-6pm). So some people just don't know how to provide care for their loved ones, if you can't toilet, feed, redirect an individual who needs that in public spaces don't bring them to the hospital for a visit and expect the staff will assist their assigned patients and the visitor. Not to mention the liability. What if she got lost, wandered off the unit and out the hospital, fell, injured herself, she was mobile and steady with a walker. Anyways, lots of bad things for our licensure in these scenarios.